“Honestly? I was enjoying the back support.”

Nox’s pale eyes dip to the stone base of the dais, so thick it actually makes the dais more like an altar.

Or maybe that’s just my morbid sense of humor assuming it won’t be long until my blood gets spilled all over its surface.

“Alright, then. Fair enough.”

He picks me up again, and I choose to ignore how sturdy his chest feels underneath his thin gray shirt as he pulls me into him and lowers me to the ground. When he props my back against the dais mount, I let out an exaggerated sigh.

A moment later, there’s a plate of food warming my lap, and Nox plops down beside me. “Are you strong enough to feed yourself, or would you like me to do that for you as well?”

I allow my jaw to go lax and my tongue to loll out of my mouth. When I cut my eyes over toward him, Nox is staring like he doesn’t quite know what to make of me.

That’s fine. I’m terrified of him, but I’ll scoop my eyes out before I let him get a glimpse of my fear.

Yesterday was humiliating enough. I’d rather not hyperventilate in front of him again.

“Fine,” I say, shoveling a forkful of buttery potatoes into my mouth.

They practically scald my tongue, but my stomach is so hollow I don’t really care. I’ll paint my mouth cavity with sores if it means ridding myself of the pangs that assault my belly.

The meat is just as delicious, but I don’t spend enough time with it on my tongue to actually distinguish what it is.

“I see you’ve decided to forgo the chewing process altogether,” Nox says, looking as if he’s reconsidering his own appetite as his fork hovers above his peas.

“Waste of time,” I say. Purposefully before swallowing, I flash him a mouthful of mashed peas.

The grimace on Nox’s face is worth it.

“We went too long without feeding you,” is all he says.

I think I preferred it when I thought he was disgusted by me.

Before Nox can take his first bite, my fork scrapes against an empty plate. “More, please,” I say, flinging a limp arm out to the side and just hoping Nox will catch the plate I’ve tossed.

He does.

“You can have more later.”

“Later? I haven’t eaten in days.” I shoot him a glare, but it doesn’t do much good.

“I know that. But you’ll make yourself sick if you eat too much at once, especially after not having anything in your stomach in a few days. You can have some more once you prove to me that what you just ate isn’t going to make a return appearance.”

As if in answer, my stomach groans. Nox looks rather pleased with the response. Stupid stomach.

I sigh, allowing my eyes to flutter closed as I wrap my fingers around the metal knife in my left hand. I didn’t return it to Nox with the plate, and I’m hoping he doesn’t notice its absence.

“Am I going to die today?” I ask, careful to keep my voice casual even as my heart pounds.

I narrow my eyes into thin slits to measure Nox’s response. His neck recoils backward ever so slightly.

“Why would I feed you if I intended to kill you?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Common human decency. Or do fae not share an equivalent to that?”

“You’re not going to die. At least not today,” he non-answers.

“Then why the food?” I ask.

Nox rubs his temples, squinting. “Unless my years of studying the human species fails me, you do require occasional food to survive, do you not? And if I don’t intend for you to die today, well, it only seems logical that I must feed you.”

“Agh. Such logic is too complex for my tiny human female brain to comprehend,” I say, to which I receive the slightest of smiles on his lips as a reward. I shouldn’t enjoy it, making him smile.

But I suppose I’m a prisoner in a foreign dungeon, and Evander’s not exactly around to judge me for it, is he?

My heart sinks at the thought of him, his reassuring arms always so willing to embrace me. His sea-green eyes sparkling with laughter.

“I mean the quality of the food,” I say, before my homesickness can run away with me. “You could shovel swine pods into my mouth, and they’d keep me alive.”

“Should I interpret that as an attempt to plant an idea into my head?”

“Perhaps,” I say, not quite willing to admit that my chest is still burning not just from the warmth of the meal, but from the sweetness of it. The kind that reminds me of home.

“I’m friends with the cook. He was more than happy to share. Though if you prefer swine pods—”

“Our cook in Othian is named Collins. He makes the best pecan tarts.” The words are more for me than Nox, and their bittersweet taste lingers on the edges of my memories.

When I peek my eyes open once more, Nox has scooted closer, his palm pressed against the stone floor, just a hair’s breadth from mine.

“I’ve never heard of Simeon baking pecan tarts, but he’s always up for a challenge. If you’d like me to ask him to—”

Nox cries out, probably from the knife I’ve just lodged in the back of his hand.

It took some focus, and I had to do it with my left hand, so the movement was awkward, but the knife protrudes from his skin just the same.

Buoyed with the energy from my meal, I spring to my feet and run.

Three steps, and my hands are on the handle of the door, left unlocked by Nox’s overconfidence in my weakness. I sling the metal door open, revealing a set of stairs, and I allow a single sob to escape my throat.

My legs wobble in protest, but I force them into submission.

I make it another half-step before Nox is in front of me, death blazing in those cold blue eyes of his. I shouldn’t, but I chance a glance at his left hand. He rips the knife clean out of the wound, and the sight of his tendons almost sends me to the floor, but I steady myself.

In a moment of desperation, I lunge for his hand, hoping to put pressure on his wound. Perhaps make him dizzy with pain.

But by the time my hand grazes his, there’s no wound to touch.

Only dark, sticky blood.